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perplexing habanero

S

saffer

I bought a selection of seeds from a reputable local seed dealer in january and planted some "congo black chocolate habanero" seeds. The first season (started mid summer) produced 20+ bright red distinctively habanero shaped and flavored fruits, some disappointment that they weren't chocolate at all. But not one of the fruit produced any seeds or even signs of developing seeds (after researching seedless peppers that isn't something usual at all) now it's heading into it's second season (spring here now) and it has one usual shaped fruit but has just set 2 new fruit that look very "scorpionish" with an extended pointed tail protruding from oval main body. I'll post some photos when I get onto a pc and figure out how to post photos. This one is really confusing me so I assume its a hybrid to begin with.. But no seeds.. And different fruit one season to the next??? Any ideas?
 
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The fruit from the previous season may have been poorly pollinated. Did the palnts appear unhealthy last season?
 
Photos need ot be uploaded to an image host such as http://imgur.com first. Once uploaded there copy over the IMG tag (on imgur you may need to click get embed codes to see them).
 
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My dad was telling me he does not trust seeds from a wide range of sellers down here and also doesn't trust most seedlings for this reason, a farmer he knows suggested that the plants are exposed to something, I don't know what it is and neither does my dad, but it causes the plant to become infertile. It can and will produce fruit but they fruit will come with little to no seeds. Not sure how much truth this bears but it sounds plausible if the sellers of the product want to have customers come back.
 
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This plant has been the most healthy looking of all my plants this year. I'm not too displeased with no seeds cos if it refuses to produce seeds that makes it easier to prepare when cooking. All previous fruit have started out dark green, but these 2 'scorpions' are light green and almost an inch long already. one of which WAS pollinated with my butch T, not sure about the other one, but that shouldn't completely change the phenotype of the fruit should it? I'm having no joy trying to post pics and get links on my phone so as soon as I'm on a pc I'll post photos of the previous habanero fruits (dark green to orange ripening bright red) the plant as a whole and these 2 new mutant fruits. If it is some kind of mutant that produces different fruit depending on what its pollinated with that could be very exciting, but highly unlikely.
 
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here's what it looks like and has been producing up until now:

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and now here are the new fruit
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and finally a shot of the whole bush with new "scorpion" fruits circled in yellow and the "normal" habanero fruit in red
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that last one is coming through a bit small tho. I'll see if I can fix that.
 
as you can see from these photos all the previous fruit have been a darker green from the beginning, smoother and rounded at the ends. very typical looking habaneros. The two new ones are much lighter green, longer, and have a very distinctive scorpion tail.
 
The flowers also were originally very white but now appear to be getting a slight green color to them.
 
*confused*
 
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the bush is starting to flower nicely again so I'll be watching what kind of fruit it decides to set now. Flowers have light greenish patches on the petals when previously they use to be completely white. If just scorpion pods or a mix of hab and scorpion pods i'll be stumped. I've heard of occasional mutations to fruit shape.. but two at the exact same time with the same mutation on opposite sides of the bush?
 
I've also planted the last 3 remaining seeds that I bought from the seed supplier of this "congo black chocolate habanero" so I can see if this is just a runt of the litter.

definitely one to watch.
 
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The greenish patches on the flowers may be because it was crossed with a C. baccatum and as it is two years old? it maybe showing some of the baccatum traints hence the Tail,  the lack of seeds could mean that since it was some how crossed with a C.baccatum what you would have is a sterile F1 outcross as the two are of different species and may produce sterile F1's. 
I'm not a exspert so I could be wrong, but its just a guess at what might have happened.

Oh yes if you can take a photo of the flower that will help too.
 
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I planted it in jan/feb I think but its heading into its second growth season after I pulled all the fruit off it. I'm not sure what its crossed with but its definitely either a hybrid or a mutant. My ghost also has the same greenish petals.. But not patches like this one. It took a real hammering yesterday with 36C temps and lovely southern hemisphere ozone hole. Hopefully I'll be seeing what the next fruit look like soon enough. The leaves are quite broad so I was thinking maybe baccatum but not hairy at all and the flowers don't look particularly baccatum. I'll take more pics of the flowers and any new fruit that set.
 
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Hey Devyn, welcome firstly! Looks like you have some serious mutations going on there. At first glance the shape and pods look Scotch Bonnet like with the folds. The pointy pods do look like they have Scorpion tails... weird! Have you tasted them? How is the heat?
 
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they're still very green so I'll see once they've ripened, I'm trying to leave all the fruit on the bush for as long as possible in the hopes that seeds will actually develop. The previous fruit had a typical flavor and heat range of a habanero, I don't have much first hand knowledge of other varieties to compare it to. The plant is dropping leaves and flowers at the moment because we've had a couple days of intense heat and sunlight so I'm trying to nurse it a bit to get it to set fruit again. The new "scorpion" fruit are developing much faster than the last remaining habanero fruit. 
I'm not really growing for production as much as for developing interesting hybrids.I'm fascinated by plant genetics and variation so this plant has me excited.
 
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I think what could help is showing the image to the supplier if you can. He will be able to identify the pod and give you an idea if this is one of his other chillies that possibly has crept into your packet of seeds or maybe it is a hybrid.
 
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I got the seeds from seeds-for-africa so I don't know if they produce them themselves, if they do I'm sure that list will be pretty long. I'm not too worried about it not being a proper choc hab cos I have a mate that has been growing them for a while now and have some guaranteed true-to-type choc hab seeds.. And one decent plant already which hasn't set fruit yet but looks about to. The more unique my plants are the better even if I don't know their potential lineage.
 
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The "habanero" is fruiting like mad now but none of the new fruit have any stingers and look like distorted habaneros with rounded ends. A little disappointed with that haha. The tiny old fruit is now ripe I'll post photos when I can.
 
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Hmm. Temperature has a huge effect on what things look like. My scotch bonnets look like shriveled..wait, you really don't want to know what that plant's making recently. Let's just say it's bad and not at all like a tam-o-shanter hat.
 
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